MIAMI.- The United States commemorates this December 7th National Pearl Harbor Dayin honor of the more than two thousand soldiers who died during the Japanese attack on the United States naval base in the port of Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, 82 years ago.
The surprise attack began at 7:48 a.m., without Washington –neutral in World War II and in the process of negotiation with Japan on the future of the Pacific– received a formal declaration of war. According to the Japanese military, they had planned to declare war half an hour before the offensive, but the message did not arrive until several hours later.
Accustomed to training, the flight of more than a hundred Japanese planes that bombed the US Pacific Fleet, in order to put it out of combat, took the locals and military stationed at this naval base, most of which were They were on rest because it was Sunday.
That December 7, 1941 became “a date that will remain in infamy because the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan,” as then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated in his speech to Congress a day later.
90 minutes of destruction en Pearl Harbor
90 minutes were enough so that the Japanese, with their 350 aircraft, 14 destroyers, eight tankers and 28 submarines, killed 2,402 Americans, including 68 civilians. Half of the dead were members of a single battleship, the USS Arizona, which exploded and sank off the coast when its ammunition depot was hit by a Japanese shell.
Furthermore, with this attack, the Japanese injured 1,247, sank nine warships, damaged another 10, and destroyed almost half of the American aircraft.
The mission had been a “success” for the Asians, who in the American counterattack only recorded 64 deaths, 29 planes destroyed, four submarines sunk and one prisoner.
However, they did not expect that this military strategy would end “waking up a sleeping giant”as Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto would acknowledge to his General Staff after the Pearl Harbor attack.
War declaration
The United States, which for three years had managed to avoid World War II, while recovering from the losses of World War I and even the effects of the Great Depression, had no choice but to enter this conflict.
President Roosevelt asked Congress to “declare a state of war between the United States and the Japanese Empire”, given the serious danger that the nation was in. Only one congresswoman from Montana, Jeannette Rankin, a pacifist and the first woman in this instance, voted against the declaration, as she had done during World War I.
“I have ordered that all measures be taken for our defense. No matter how long it takes us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people with their legitimate power will triumph until we achieve absolute victory (…) not only will we defend ourselves to the end but we will “We will ensure that this form of betrayal never endangers us again. With confidence in our armed forces – with the boundless determination of our people – we will obtain the inevitable victory, with the help of God,” said the American president.
US entry into World War II
Meanwhile, Japan continued to advance in Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific, and its main allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on Washington, four days later, on the United States.
The American offensive did not take long to wait, which was followed by a major war conflict, which destroyed a large part of Europe and Japan, claiming a toll of 15 million dead and 25 million wounded in combat, and at least 45 million deaths. of civilians. During these battles, the US lost 416,800 soldiers.
Although a turning point was the confrontation between the US and Japan in June 1942, on Midway Island. This sealed a catastrophic defeat for the Japanese empire, with the sinking of four of its aircraft carriers in a short time.
This attack, which established the emergence of the aircraft carrier as the center of naval power, replacing the battleship, marked the entry of the world’s most powerful military power into World War II.
“Being saturated and satiated, with emotion and sensation; “I went to bed and slept the sleep of the safe and grateful,” he wrote on British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, upon learning that the attack on Pearl Harbor had finally led the United States towards war, consolidating the victory against the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) and marking the emergence of the American nation as a dominant world power, which has shaped international politics ever since.
@ebritop22
Source: With information from CNN / National Geographic / El Debate / El País
